06/08/2026
I am so unbelievably furious I am literally shaking and crying in my car right now! I spent my absolute last $3.00 of my weekly budget on this Texas Lottery ticket hoping for a miracle and I actually won $20.00! I proudly walked up to the counter to cash it in and the clerk told me they have a new corporate policy that requires a $25.00 linguistic processing fee to cash out any winning crossword tickets! A LINGUISTIC PROCESSING FEE?? She looked at my wife and said if we cannot afford the administrative tax then we should not be playing premium vocabulary games! She literally kept my winning ticket behind the register as collateral until I bring her the fee! I am exposing this gas station on the local news because extorting broke people over a $20.00 win is absolutely disgusting!